in the picture

from the archive

Magazine

Cleaning Up Shipbreaking

The European Union plans to impose strict new rules on how companies scrap old tankers and cruise liners, run aground and dismantled on beaches in South Asia. However the practice in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, hazardous for humans and the environment, will still be hard to stop. European, Turkish and Chinese recyclers are set to benefit from the revamped standards. Depending on raw material prices, ship owners can make up to $500 per tonne of steel from an Indian yard, compared with $300 in China and just $150 in Europe.

1

A worker uses a cutting torch to dismantle the hull of a barge covered in barnacles near French navy vessels at the Galloo ship recycling plant in Ghent March 24, 2015. The site, which is Europe's largest ship recycling plant processes some 35,000 tonnes of metal every year. FRANCOIS LENOIR/REUTERS